CNN's Tapper, Bash Urged to Apologize for 'Reprehensible' Lies About Rashida Tlaib

Calls grew on Monday for CNN and two of its top on-air personalities to apologize for claiming that U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib made an antisemitic remark during a recent interview after the journalist who interviewed the Michigan Democrat confirmed that the reporters were lying.

During the September 13 interview with Detroit Metro Times reporter Steve Neavling, Tlaib—the only Palestinian American member of Congress—condemned Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel for setting a "dangerous precedent" by prosecuting University of Michigan students who peacefully protested against Israel's war on Gaza, for which the key U.S. ally is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice. Charges against the Michigan protesters include trespassing on their own campus and obstructing police.

"I'm the reporter who interviewed Rashida Tlaib. She never said Nessel did this because she's Jewish. Never. You're spreading lies."

"We've had the right to dissent, the right to protest," Tlaib said during the interview. "We've done it for climate, the immigrant rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs. But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs."

Nessel, who is Jewish, accused Tlaib of antisemitism in a Friday social media post comparing the congresswoman's comments to a cartoon drawn by Detroit News automotive reporter Henry Payne and published in the right-wing National Review implying Tlaib is a member of Hezbollah, the Lebanese political and paramilitary group.

Enter Jake Tapper, CNN's lead Washington anchor, who critics have long accused of pro-Israel bias. On Monday, Tapper interviewed Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, asking the Democrat to respond to Tlaib's purported assertion that Nessel is only prosecuting Palestine protesters "because she's Jewish."

"I'm not going to get in the middle of this argument that they're having," Whitmer said. "I can just say this. We do want to make sure that students are safe on our campuses, and we recognize that every person has the right to make their statement about how they feel about an issue, a right to speak out, and I'm going to use every lever of mine to ensure that both are true."

During a live broadcast on Monday, CNN anchor Dana Bash lamented what she called the "sad reality" that "antisemitism is everywhere and it comes from both ends of the political spectrum."

"But politicians sometimes sidestep calling it out when it comes from a member of their own party," she added, referring to "a Democratic congresswoman's accusation that the state's Jewish attorney general was letting her religion influence her job."

There was no such "accusation."

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League—which has come under fire for conflating legitimate criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews—slammed Whitmer, posting Monday that "saying you want to 'make sure that students are safe on our campuses' is just words if you are not willing to use your bully pulpit to speak out unequivocally on antisemitism and support holding people accountable for violating the law when it affects Jews."

Whitmer then issued a new statement saying: "The suggestion that Attorney General Nessel would make charging decisions based on her religion as opposed to the rule of law is antisemitic. We must all use our platforms and voices to call out hateful rhetoric and racist tropes."

Neavling accused Whitmer of "adding to the lie."

"I'm the reporter who interviewed Rashida Tlaib," he said in response to a social media post by Tapper. "She never said Nessel did this because she's Jewish. Never. You're spreading lies."

On Monday, Detroit Metro Times also published a fact-check by Neavling underscoring that Tlaib never said what Nessel, Tapper, and Bash claim.

"Tlaib never once mentioned Nessel's religion or Judaism. But Metro Times pointed out in the story that Nessel is Jewish, and that appears to be the spark that led to the false claims," Neavling wrote. "It should also be noted that the ACLU of Michigan criticized Nessel for charging peaceful protesters at the University of Michigan."

Margaret Zaknoen DeReus, executive director at the California-based Institute for Middle East Understanding, said Monday that "at this point, there is virtually zero chance that CNN, Jake Tapper, and Dana Bash don't know that Rashida Tlaib never said what they are claiming."

"Why are they doubling down instead of correcting themselves and apologizing?" she asked.

Isaac Bailey, a McClatchy columnist and professor of communications practices at Davidson College in North Carolina, asserted Tuesday that Bash and Tapper "owe Tlaib an apology."

Later on Monday, Tapper said during an interview with Nessel that he "misspoke yesterday" about Tlaib's comments.

Bash followed Tuesday by acknowledging that Tlaib "did not reference Nessel's Jewish identity," but added that Nessel believes the congresswoman's remarks were antisemitic.

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement Tuesday that "CNN made a misstatement of fact that needs to be retracted if the network is to maintain its journalistic credibility."

"Congresswoman Tlaib should also be offered a public apology for falsely claiming she is antisemitic," Walid added.

As the Jewish Telegraphic Agency noted earlier this year, Bash and Tapper have "both infused their Jewish identity into their reporting."

Tlaib has faced repeated unfounded allegations of antisemitism from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, especially for calling Israel's war on Gaza a "genocide"—an assessment with which many experts concur—and for using the phrase, "From the river to the sea."

The congresswoman has explained that, to her and to many Palestinians, the phrase—which is also a core component of the original platform of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party—"is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate."

Last November, Tlaib's House colleagues voted 234-188, with 22 Democrats joining almost all Republicans present, in approving a resolution to censure the congresswoman over her defense of Palestine and criticism of Israel's annihilation of Gaza, which has now left more than 147,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing.

On Tuesday, 21 House Democrats led by Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) published a statement contending that "casting doubt on Attorney General Nessel's impartiality or implying these cases are being handled unfairly due to her religious background is antisemitic, deeply disturbing, and unacceptable."

The dead in Gaza include at least 100 journalists, the vast majority of whom are Palestinian.

In May, the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) filed a third complaint at the International Criminal Court alleging "war crimes against journalists in Gaza."

RSF said it had "reasonable grounds for thinking that some of these journalists were deliberately killed and that the others were the victims of deliberate IDF attacks against civilians" and accused Israel of "an eradication of the Palestinian media."

There has been little reporting on the subject by the U.S. corporate media, even as American journalists are killed or wounded in what journalistic investigations have concluded are deliberate targetings by Israeli forces.